The intense fire burning atop Notre Dame in Paris forced firefighters to make a last-minute decision to risk their lives in order to save centuries-old cathedral.
Bad timing, poor judgment, and a series of unforced errors combined to put the cathedral in crisis on April 15 when a fire ignited beneath the church’s roof, supported by hundreds of old, dry beams known as “the forest,” according to the New York Times.
Emergency officials received the first call that Notre Dame was burning about half an hour after the first warning went off in the church. An archaic alert system, a new employee working a double shift, and miscommunication hindered the emergency response almost to the point of no return, and firefighters first arrived on scene after flames had engulfed Notre Dame’s roof and were threatening its iconic spire.
Attempts to combat the inferno from the ground fell pitifully short. Master Cpl. Myriam Chudzinski, 27, led the first group of firefighters up to the roof of Notre Dame to fight the fire on even ground. Chudzinski was on the roof when the 750-ton spire fell, sending a fireball that likely would have killed her had she not been standing behind a wall.
Chudzinski’s team descended from the roof after making little headway. The fire spread to the cathedral’s South Tower, which contains a latticework of beams holding up heavy bells. Firefighters recognized that should the fire cause the bells to fall, the thousands of pounds of bronze tumbling down would bring the tower with them.
The cathedral’s survival hinged on the South Tower remaining standing, fire officials concluded. As the situation grew worse, Paris fire chief Gen. Jean-Claude Gallet, 54, decided to send a team back up the cathedral.
“There was a feeling that there was something bigger than life at stake … and that Notre-Dame could be lost,” said Ariel Weil, mayor of the Fourth Arrondissement. Notre Dame stands in Weil’s section of Paris.
“[Gallet] came in and told us, ‘In 20 minutes, I’ll know if we’ve lost it,'” Weil said, recalling a meeting between Paris’s head firefighter and various French officials, including President Emmanuel Macron. “The air was so thick. But we knew what he meant: He meant Notre Dame could collapse.”
A team of firefighters ascended the cathedral’s North Tower and set up on a landing between the two towers. Some worked on dousing the flames in the South Tower while the others focused on keeping the inferno on the roof at bay. Despite the danger, the team of firefighters did not have a safe escape route if the South Tower collapsed — the team worked its way up into the South Tower to put out the flames among the beams.
“She is saved,” said Gen. Jean-Marie Gontier, Gallet’s deputy, after inspecting the South Tower from the church’s upper landing.
